I find myself always torn when it comes to song writing. I work in the church and so the songs I can USE the most are the ones that are corporate worship songs. As a musician - an artist - I find that life offers so many more topics to write about than those topics normally associated with worship songs. I mean, most corporated worship songs (songs used for group singing in a church) tend to fit a few basic catagories.
- Songs about who God is
- Prayers in the form of songs to God (this would include laments and songs where we ask for things)
- Praise songs (songs similart to 1, but more focussed on ascribing holiness and greatness to God)
I could probably get picky and find more catagories. I know there are loads of sub-catagories too, but for the most part I think all the songs fit into one of these three in some why. Here’s the part that gets me…
We are taught as Christians that part of our worship is about our lifestyle. Worship can be having a friend over for dinner and serving them. Worship is sometimes defined as doing things that delight the Father - or doing things that give glory to God. Ok, so if it can honour God to simply live according to the example Jesus taught us, then why aren’t songs about life really considered worship songs? I mean, if I wrote a song that focussed on a love relationship like a marriage, or even about sex or whatever, why is it that this song can not be used in worship? Would it not make everyone mindful of who God is and what a great universe He created? Why not sing about the beauty of a lake in the summer time? Do I need to say that God created the lake in my song in order for it to be worship? Do I need to spell it out?
What I’m frustrated with is the whole idea that our lives are supposed to be expressions of worship, but songs about life are not - or at least they usually can’t be used in most corporate settings. Because of this I find myself somehow limited by being a Christian song writer. I envy those who write and don’t have to think about whether or not their song will work as a corporate worship song. I too could write like that. Once in a while a corporate song will come out and I could use it at church, but really what I wish is that I could write about life and people could be mature enough to understand that this in itself can be a part of thier worship.
A band I listen to a lot called, “King’s X” is a three piece rock group from Texas. Some of them were members of the very earliest iterations of the Christian band, Petra. Today they work really hard to avoid being labelled as a Christian band. Though the members may be Christian, they resist being corralled into only singing Jesus songs. I think I understand why. You see, “Christian” should not really be considered a genre of music. It is a way of life - not a type of music. “Christian” can be used perhaps to identify a theme in a song - or even a theme across an album, but without words, it’s all just music. It could be rock music, or classical. It could be jazzy, or bluesy, or a mixture of a few different styles. Without words, I don’t think it can be Christian. Unless we say that if a Christian created it, then it is assumed that it is an expression of his(or her) Christian life and is therefore Christian. What about when a non-Christian performs the instrumental that was written by a Christian? Is that performance Christian?
I can look at a beautiful mountain scape and I almost immediately think of how amazing God is. An atheist looks at the same view and is perhaps just as in awe as I am, but simply thinks about how insignificant he is in this huge universe. We both experience wonder - we could both be moved and inspired to write songs about it.
I just feel somewhat pigeon-holed by the culture of the Church. I feel that if I wrote an angry song and recorded it on the same CD as a praise song, I would be considered…off in some way. It’s too bad, because there is so much to be inspired by in this world. Good things and bad things.
Sometimes I feel like simply naming these things honors God because its as though we say, “God, I noticed this thing (or feeling or injustice or source of joy) in this universe and now I’m going to acknowledge it (or maybe praise it’s goodness, or rebuke it’s vileness)” As a people who is created by our God and as a person who tries (often in vain) to be like my God, when I see something in this universe, good or bad, and I think on it, I often feel that my thoughts are echoed by the Father in heaven. For example, when I feel hopelessly sad for animals that are treated horribly by man, my sense is that God doesn’t remove my sadness because He too is sad. When my heart breaks for children in war torn parts of the world, or areas that suffer under incredible poverty, I come to realize that the Father’s heart breaks also.
Do you think it delights the father when we begin to see the world as he sees it - even if what we see is bad? Do you think he delights when he sees that the heart of one of his children has become slightly more like his? Why not sing those songs then - even as a group - and name the things we see -good and bad? Why not give the opportunity for people to relate to the world and begin to see it the way we think the Father sees it?
I noticed something the other day. I realized that in our society we tend to say that all art is creative. I’m not sure that’s true. First let me be clear what I mean by art. I don’t really mean just painting and sculpting. Sadly when we say art, we almost immediately think of those things, but the fuller picture (pun intended) inludes photography, music, telelvision and cinematography, fashion, and literature. I could go on too. There are lots of areas that could easily be considered artistic. What about architecture, carpentry, tatoo artist, custom car building… and on and on. All kinds of things fall under th true definition of art. That collection of things is what I’m talking about here - just so we’re clear.
I’ve noticed that not all art is creative. Most activities that can be catagorized as art also mix with something else called “skill” or “technique”. Now there might be some creativity in developing or pioneering a particular technique, but once the technique is mastered or well understood, it kind of becomes a part of our toolbox. So when it is applied, it is less about creativity and more about skillful application of a learned technique in order to produce the desired result. For example, when a carpeter makes a beautiful piece of furniture that has a drawer in it, he might use a dove-tail joint when making the drawer. Most people who are familiar with this joint would not consider the carpenter as being creative for using a standard and well known carpentry technique such as the dove-tail joint. After seeing his joint though, we might consider him to be skilled at using dove-tails in his work. And we might look at the finished piece of furniture and consider it to be a creative piece. I could be that if he used the dove-tail in a new way, we might consider his application of that technique to be creative.
Why all this clarification? Well I was thinking about movies the other day, and I realized that there are some techniques that are used in movies that appear to be used in order to ad a sort of artsyness to the movie. It’s almost as though someone (probably the director or producer) aren’y trying to make their own movie at all, but rather a reincarnation of the last big hit. Matrix comes out with some new ways to film fight scenes where everything stops as the camera moves and then keeps going again. So now you see 18 new movies that all try and do the Matrix thing to wow audiences. At the end of the day, the movies are all stamped as “art” when in reality they are sometimes nothing more than a sales pitch. We would not get big movies if there wasn’t big money in them. I think we’d find movies to be far more important and meaningful to us if movie makers were more driven by their desire to say something to the world that they are by how much money they will make, or how happy the studio will be with our choices.
The same thing happens with music. As a music maker, I know the trap of which I speak. There is a tendency to mimmick what is popular. At first it’s an innocent desire to see if you too can do what so-and-so did in his song or album or whatever. Maybe your tried to get a similar sound on a certain instument, or maybe your experimenting with a new musical style. All good things at first - and really I’m not saying that it gets bad. I’m more suggesting that we’d get more out of some of these expressions as a people - as a society, if people would just go deeper that what the average consumer is going to like. Sure we might be entertained - and when it’s about money, ultimately it’s about ensuring we are entertained. If we are entertained, we won’t feel ripped off and we’ll keep consuming.
What triggered all of this thinking was a movie I saw called “Stranger Than Fiction” with Will Ferrell. I thought this was a great movie. I found it refreshing. I liked it because it was truly creative. The idea behind the movie is creative in itself. It’s not your average action show or love story or whatever. It explores an idea that I found quite unexplored - at least it was in my mind. I mean, it kind of touches on that old standby idea where our life is nothing but someone elses imaginings and if they stop imagining, then we stop living. I’m not here to expose the plot. All I’ll say is that if you want to have some fun going a little deeper than normal on an idea that you don’t see all the time in Hollywood, you might want to check this show out.
Ultimately what I found is that the movie was made for a specific purpose. It was made to tell a story. It did it in an entertaining way - and I appcreciate that because I don’t like my spare time wasted. It used known people, but they were well casted. They each brough something about their well-known style that turly added to the story telling as opposed to just being there to draw more ticket sales. Perhaps them being there was a sales move, but the creators really used the talent well. At least they did in my opinion. What I like is just that it FELT creative - I didn’t feel like I was being flogged with standby techniques (in the movie making and the script writing) that sell. You know? The best word I can use here, is “refreshing”. It was just that.
Other movies that have that feeling for me are movies like, “Beautiful Mind”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “Whale Rider”, “Sideways”, and I could go on. Some of these were blockbusters and some are less known.
Even “Titanic” would fall into this kind of catagory for me because yes, it was a huge seller, but more importantly, it told a story in a creative way. The easy way to tell that story would to do the disaster movie forumula. A bunch of relative strangers get thrown together as they endure this great hardship. We see someone come into his/herself as they overcome the trouble they face. New friends are made and usually lost. Someone falls in love, but the focus is really more on how in the midst of this terrifying disaster do these two end up getting in on while time magically stands still. Titanic did do some of this, but I’d say it was done quite creatively. Instead of just watching a ship sink, we were actually able to get a taste for the tragedy of the whole ordeal by putting our feet in the shoes of Jack or Rose.
This whole thought process also helped me to identify what about Peter Jackson movies irritate me. I saw the first Lord of the Rings movie and loved it. It too had that fresh feeling for me. Partly because the material is so masterful (Tolkien is pretty awesome, right), and partly because the story was stunning to watch. Effects were great. Casting was pretty well right on. I was entertained. It was like seeing a dove-tail joint for the first time and kind of thinking, “I see this. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s a good idea and it works.” To go further on that analogy, its like Jackson said, “Ok, lets show people this dove-tail we’ve employed, and lets zoom in on it and circle around and show how effective it can be and how much it adds to this entire piece we are creating.” And we all eat it up because we’ve never been able to get that close a look at such a great concept.
Then the other two LotR movies came along. I still liked them both, but something about the started to wear thin. The story was sound - a great story. The effects were fun - a must for an action packed movie series such as this. The cast was still great. I guess I started to feel as though I was being show the same old dove-tail again. And not just for a few minutes to remind me, but for like 3 or 4 hours. At the time, I still hadn’t put my finger on all I’ve been saying here.
This whole thing is further enforced for me when I think about King Kong. One of Jacksons favourite tools is the long sections of slow motion and sort of pausy talking and acting. When you first see the technique used it provides an emotional connection. The danger is though, if that connection doesn’t actually happen when he first uses it, then when it comes back later, you just aren’t with the program. If you don’t buy that the girl cares for the ape, then all those slow monkey-woman shots and scenes just kind of waste your time. Meanwhile you can’t wait for one of Jackson’s action sequences where impossible things to film find their way onto your TV or local theatre screen.
Basically, what I’m kind of saying is that I’ve realized that Peter Jackson tells a story that most great film makers can tell in 1.5 - 2 hours, but he can only get it done in 3-4 hours - and the time difference doesn’t add to the experience in my opinion. It actually kind of gets a little boring…
So to try and sum up here there seems to be utilitarian artists and creative artists. Both employ creativity and skill, but the utilitarian one tends to collect and develop his art tools for a purpose of gaining an audience. The creative one builds his tool box for the purpose of expressing themselves and saying to the world whatever it is that they feel needs to be said.
I’m suggesting that the simple application of skill and technique may constitute art, but not necessarily creativity. If a painter paints the same original painting 100 times, is the 100th painting as creative as the 1st? Are all the paintings art? In order for art (regardless of the media it is in) to come off as creative and to have that fresh feel, I think that maybe it requires a less industrial method and a more contemplative approach. The idea here is that if the carpenter stops calling on his creativity when he makes his furniture, his work will become non-creative and possibly even uninspiring. Express what you want to express and use the techniques that will BEST do that. Then stop. As soon as you try and mix that process with techniques that sell, you run the risk of just kind of getting boring. You also run the risk of stripping your message from the expression itself. The point gets foggy and people begin looking only at the surface eye (or ear) candy. People stop looking for meaining and focus only on the very shallowest parts of that particular art form.
Thats all for now…
